He was asking about forums written in Ruby on Rails, not forums that talk about RoR. Easy mistake to make though, I almost did it myself

caydel wrote:

Are any of these going to be integrated with Radiant CMS?

Not sure, but I don't see why "integration" is so important. It's not like Radiant offers member/community features like phpnuke and friends do, so I don't see why you'd really want more integration than using the same theme and throwing the forum on a subdomain/subfolder of the main site.

Re: Any Rails Forums?

I believe so. I have high hopes that this one won't be vaporware. It's just in stealth-mode right now.

allen wrote:

Beast blows all the others away already and it only seems to have existed for three days. So when do we port onto it?

I agree that Beast in impressive, but it's probably too bare bones for what we want here. I am sure someone will develop a nice fork, or mods/hacks/plugins for it that will add things we want here--or maybe we will. My biggest concern is proper moderation tools.

I also think fRoRum has a chance to become something nice. It has yet to see its first public release, and is just a part-time project of one developer (Josh Peek), afaik. I'm not ready to write it off.

Regardless, it seems that all of sudden in the past few months there are a bunch more options for RoR-based forum software out there or on their way. It's very nice to see.

Edit: No fair, Vinnie edited his reply while I was writing mine. To add, a PunBB converter would definitely rock. And something to automatically put in some 301 redirects for all the URLs here pointing to the new threads on whatever forum software we switch to--otherwise, I fear a big hit in Google, which would be bad for the growth of this community. We'll have to figure out how to cross that bridge when we come to it.

Re: Any Rails Forums?

Josh wrote:

I also think fRoRum has a chance to become something nice. It has yet to see its first public release, and is just a part-time project of one developer (Josh Peek), afaik. I'm not ready to write it off.

fRoRum by Josh Peek? Really? I'm not so sure.

Stealth mode is one way to describe where rorBB has gone. I'll try to retain my initial enthusiasm.

Beast has come a long way in three days. It's taking a fairly traditional approach to how the bulletin board should work instead instead of the blogish post-plus-comments approach of some others. I like that. It's also addressed the bloat issue by having a target of less than 500 lines. If they retain enthusiasm in it it should come a long way over the next few weeks and be a good candidate for this forum to move to. Now's the time to get involved and help direct their thinking.

Re: Any Rails Forums?

I think frorum is by Brad Pauly, but Josh Peek did one for Rails Day IIRC.

I assure you rorBB is still under development. It is just staying under wraps for now until there's something worthwhile to show. Beast is definitely impressive, but may be too lightweight for some forums. We'll see how it turns out. It may very well end up being the ultimate Rails forum engine.

Re: Any Rails Forums?

ryanb wrote:

I think frorum is by Brad Pauly, but Josh Peek did one for Rails Day IIRC.

Ah, right you are. I got confused because I think fRoRum was also a Rails Day project.

allen wrote:

It's also addressed the bloat issue by having a target of less than 500 lines. If they retain enthusiasm in it it should come a long way over the next few weeks and be a good candidate for this forum to move to.

But I wonder if their goal to keep it under 500 lines will prevent it from going "a long way". I tend to think Beast will be a nice, very well made/designed base for a larger forum project (the code is MIT licensed, afterall). Someone can take it and run with it. But what Josh and Rick are trying to accomplish specifically, probably won't be up to what we're looking for for this forum.

As for rorBB--I've seen it, I assure you it exists. Also a nice start--but like all of the other systems, still in its infancy.

I think Vinnie, Kelli, and I are content to see what materializes for now.

Re: Any Rails Forums?

I think Rick and I feel you can focus and produce something better with a fixed scope. :-) Beast now has search, RSS feeds for most everything, moderation, stickies, and more (weighing in at 414 LOC). I'm still cleaning up the UI, but the features are there. You're right we can't get everything under the sun in 500 LOC, nor is that the goal.

I hate it when i download a Rails project and find it already has thousands of lines of code... too me that says too many assumptions have been made about what I want and the cost of change and fitting it to my fancy is likely too high.

It's also oppionated software. Rick doesn't believe in smilies, I don't believe in signatures, Rick doesn't believe in quoting, etc, etc. All assumptions people are free to change once they have the source, but that was our starting point. However just reading some of our threads on beast.caboo.se... wow, you can actually just read conversations without all the bloat getting in the way. It's a good feeling.

Glad people are liking the concept though, it'd been a fun little project. Patches and bug fixes (within scope) are certainly welcome as well as thoughts and feedback... I've used a lot of forums in the past, but never built one before now. :-)

If anyone wants to volunteer to write a punbb -> Beast converted, that would be awesome!

Re: Any Rails Forums?

I really like the idea of a very modular forum system. I think this is the approach the rorBB team might be taking (don't quote me on that--heh, how's that for noncommittal).

I.e., you have a very stripped down, nothing-but-basics base, on top of which you can add modules to extend the functionality any way you want. You want smilies? Add the smiley mod. You wany signatures? Add the signature mods. You want image support, quoting, PMs, etc., etc. Add the mods.

The only problem I see with that is when you update the base you have 7000 mods to update as well, which could be problematic. But I am sure smart software developers could figure out how to cope with that potential problem.

(Oh, and I used to hate smilies, too--I still visit some forums where I have them mansually turned off... but I have been assimilated. At least I still mostly dislike the animated ones. )

Re: Any Rails Forums?

While I can't deny that Pastie and Beast themes are inspired by what I call "sheet of paper" design, which I think 37s has made popular... I would not say "based off of" myself... I just like dropping the white "sheet of paper" in a sea of grey (It makes for good contrast) and then doing whatever else comes natually... that's how Pastie was built, not from a desire to copy Basecamp tit for tat, but just starting with a white sheet of paper on grey and building the rest of the app around that.

I can see the POV if one irrevocably associates "sheet of paper" only with 37s, but I've been doing white/grey designs (because of the nice contrast) for a long time as part of two column layouts... losing the borders and focusing on the content is an iteration of that same concept.

Re: Any Rails Forums?

Yeah, I don't mind the smilies, but Rick doesn't care for them - and I can live without. I've gotten my way on a few other things. :-)

And maybe it's just the programmer in me that I don't like the idea of entirely boxed software... I see the convenience... but I guess it'd be nice to see people take the 500 LOC and build on it, make their own things, run with it.

Why would they ever need to upgrade? Sure, over time the base may incrementally get better... but that isn't a manditory upgrade. Also the small LOC makes security easier, but if there is a hole someone can simply add a test to their own install and either port the fix, or write there own.

I know all BB have "mods" and I guess that's to be expected... but yeah... upgrading and maintaing mods over time can be a pain.

Update: Plus, as a communications platform, forums don't really need 7000 mods... the only thing I can think preventing Beast from being used in some contexts right now is file uploads... but once you have forums, topics, and posts... you've provided the means for a community to develop and interaction to take place. The rest is just icing on the cake.